How many Brits do drugs and what are the latest trends in use of illegal substances? Photograph: Jack Carey/Alamy

The figures on UK drug use released by the Home Office on Thursday give us incredibly detailed information not just about the type of substances people are putting into their bodies, but a lot about who those individuals are.

From the income groups of drug users to their marital status, ethnic group and occupation, the results provide an insight into UK drug trends.

3 out of 4 people who took drugs last year have consumed cannabis

Unlike statistics on reported crime, in the Crime Survey for England and Wales "information given to the interviewer is treated in the strictest confidence".

As a result, the 78% of people aged 16-59 who took drugs in the past year who admitted to consuming cannabis at least once in their lifetime did not need to fear prosecution for their crime – and nor did the 41% of those who took cannabis in the past year who admitted to using it regularly.

Cocaine and ecstasy are the next most prevalent drugs in England and Wales in terms of individual use, followed by amyl nitrite (a substance frequently found in poppers).

Young people are less likely to be frequent drug users

If you assume that most drug users are young, you're right – up to a point. While the 16-24 age group makes up a substantial fraction of users, different drugs demonstrate different trends.

A smaller proportion of people aged 16-24 said they were frequent users of any given drug. This was most obvious with class B and C drugs. For example, 30% of those aged 16-59 said they frequently used tranquilisers – that proportion was 0% among people aged 16-24.

Deprived Brits living in urban areas

6.8% of people with an annual household income of less than £10,000 a year were frequent drug users, compared to 1.4% of those in households with incomes of £50,000 or more.

3.1% of respondents in urban areas used drugs frequently, while that number was 1.8% in rural areas of England and Wales. There were other regional trends too. The north-west had the highest rate of frequent drug use (3.6% of respondents from there), followed by London (3.1%). The lowest rate was in the West Midlands, where 2.1% of respondents admitted using drugs frequently.

Cocaine: rich man's aspirin?

There is also data on which drugs are being consumed by which groups. Broadly, most illegal substances follow the trends described above. But there are exceptions.

Those living in households with incomes less than £10,000 are more likely to use drugs such as amphetamines, mephedrone and cannabis and are 5% more likely than wealthier groups to have consumed any drug at all. But 2.3% of those living in households with incomes upwards of £50,000 have used cocaine in the past year, compared to an average of 1.7% among households living on less than £30,000.

Lifestyle indicators

The link between alcohol consumption and drug use is often debated but the statistics here would suggest the two are related. Among frequent drug users, 7.2% had visited a pub or wine bar nine or more times in the past month, while 2.5% of frequent drug users said they hadn't been at all.

Similarly, 8.5% of frequent drug users said they had visited a nightclub four or more times during the past month and only 2.3% said they had not been at all.

Change over time

Since 2004, drug use in England and Wales has shown an almost consistent decline – and because such a large proportion of all drug use is cannabis, that drug mirrors the overall trend.

Cocaine, however, has only recently started to decline after soaring from 0.6% of people aged 16-59 using the drug in 1996 to 2.6% doing so in 2007.

Attitudes

It's not just drug use that varies hugely between different people, but also our attitudes to it.

Here again, the results may be surprising. Just 12% of people aged 16-24 think it is OK to use cocaine occasionally, compared to 21% of those aged 25-34. Men are much more likely to find occasional drug use acceptable (be it cannabis, cocaine or ecstasy). Men are three times as likely as women to report frequent drug use in the past year.

Advice

The national helpline Talk to Frank has detailed information about the effects of drugs and how to receive help if you think you have a substance abuse problem.